How Sharing Content Gets You More Visibility and Sales

By Melonie Dodaro

I’m sure you’ve often heard, content is king. But does that mean that you have to write everything you share? There aren’t enough hours in the day for that.

Content marketing’s role in the continued growth and development of your business cannot be overstated. However, unless you are running a news agency, it is unreasonable to expect that you would be producing nearly all of the content you share on a daily basis.

Doing that would not be productive in the greater scheme of things (as it would prevent you from focusing on other critical parts of your operations). It would also be unrealistic to assume that this can even be done in the first place.

Lastly, because creating original content 100% of the time is likely to make you stick to the same, tried and tested types and methods, it creates a bubble that stops you from seeing what other kinds of content you should be producing for your audience.

This is where content curation comes in. Simply put, content curation involves going through relevant content online that would be of interest to your target audience, then making a list of items and corresponding links that you can share with your social media followers.

The benefit of content curation is twofold: Not only does it keep your online presence fresh by giving you new things to share, but it also provides you with some valuable insight on the topics that are worth writing about.

When used right, content curation can give you enough inspiration and ideas for your own content marketing – and perhaps, even provide a solution to any hurdles you might be encountering in providing services for your clients.

Before we continue, though, I’d like to clarify the difference between content curation and content creation, as the two terms are not interchangeable. Content curation involves sharing content from other sources, while content creation is creating and sharing your own content.

Content curation it’s more important to social selling than you think. It provides some crucial benefits to your social selling efforts. Make time for content curation in your marketing strategy, because sharing content actually helps you:

1. Build credibility and trust

There is a tremendous amount of content online and it’s important for you to know what to share with your followers. With content curation, you can improve your credibility and build trust by only sharing verified information – you must be meticulous when it comes to the things you share online.

Of course, it might be challenging for you to sift through all the fluff and rubbish, just to find the real content gems to share. That’s why we employ content curation tools to make the job easier.

2. Position yourself as an authority in your field

Content curation can also provide you with the answers to your audience’s most important questions. This will help make you appear to be a true expert at what you do – an industry authority that they can count on.
All you have to do is to learn how to properly choose the content you’ll curate and share. Mastering this simple skill will greatly enhance your reputation.

3. Maintain consumers’ top-of-mind awareness for more effective social selling

With content curation, you’ll always have something to share with your followers. Thus, they’ll always be seeing you in their newsfeeds. By providing them with valuable answers to the problems they face, you’ll become the top-of-mind option for them.

With the right mix of visibility, activity, and credibility, your relationships with your customers will ultimately become stronger and more profitable.

4. Build and grow your sales pipeline

Of course, when you can fulfill a need or provide useful answers to your target audience’s problems, you are actually helping them to move further along the buyer’s journey, effectively increasing your sales pipeline.

Over time, with consistent sharing of valuable curated content, you’ll see a community grow and include people who share your values and vision — people whom you won’t have a hard time in convincing to convert.

How to increase the results of your content curation

The next question is: With curated content, how can your strategy make you stand out, given that Google has already indexed over 30 trillion web pages to date? How do you shine among the rest, despite such an overwhelming number? Here are a few tips:

1. Add your own perspective

Don’t just take existing content out there and share it as is. Put some effort into it by personalizing it. You may simply add quotes or insights from within the curated content, or preferably you can share your perspective on the piece of content you’re sharing.

2. Engage with your audience – ask questions, respond to comments, and show them your brand’s human side

It’s also not enough to just keep sharing links to articles with your audience. That’s like starting a conversation without bothering to continue it. Ask them questions so that you can better understand what they think or feel about certain topics that are relevant to you, and respond to their answers to show them that their opinions and input matter to you.

Content curation mostly involves sharing other people’s content, sure, but it doesn’t mean you can’t get creative to have it better suit your needs.

3. Make sure to have a CTA in place

Sharing curated content without a proper call to action (CTA) is a missed opportunity to get your audience to take a particular action. Your call to action may be as simple as asking them to comment, to share or to take some other action. People are more likely to take action when you tell them specifically the action you want them to take.

Melonie Dodaro is founder of Top Dog Social Media that helps brands and businesses, use social media marketing and social selling to boost visibility, attract new customers and increase revenue. Dodaro is also the author of The LinkedIn Code. To learn more visit www.TopDogSocialMedia.com